rhinobenedetti
Verified buyer
01/17/26
I love the teaching style, sincerity, and passion of Reverend Robert Jones. Most of all I love the powerful joy he has for playing, teaching, and learning music.
Blues Innovations for Ukulele
Learn How To Play Traditional Blues on the Ukulele
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About this course
The guitar wasn't considered a blues instrument until Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded "Mail Man Blues" in 1924. Sonny Boy Williamson’s recording of "Dust My Broom” with Elmore James introduced the harmonica into the blues realm.
Reverend Robert Jones’ Blues Innovations for Ukulele demonstrates how to translate many of the key techniques and approaches from the blues tradition for the ukulele. Along the way, you’ll also acquire a diverse repertoire of 11 “blues uke” performance studies covering a diverse range of blues progressions and feels.
”The ukulele is not only one of today’s most popular, versatile instruments in American music. It's also easy to learn and fun to play. While its sonic footprint is similar to other blues instruments, most people don’t yet consider the uke as a blues instrument.
We’ll cover essential techniques and concepts to help you get started on the instrument. We’ll talk about uke history, sizes, tuning, basic chords, strumming vs. fingerpicking, and much more. I’ve organized the course across a series of 11 innovative “blues uke” performance studies so that you can apply all of the concepts and techniques in a musical context.
Each of the performance studies has been designed to help you find your own “blues” voice on the ukulele at every step of the way - learning new chords and keys, finding pentatonic scales, blues ornamentations for uke, fingerpicking patterns, singing blues tunes and more.
You’ll have all of TrueFire’s learning tools at your fingertips so that you can learn and practice everything at your own pace.”
Reverend Jones will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your uke and let’s play some blues with Reverend Robert Jones!
Reverend Robert Jones’ Blues Innovations for Ukulele demonstrates how to translate many of the key techniques and approaches from the blues tradition for the ukulele. Along the way, you’ll also acquire a diverse repertoire of 11 “blues uke” performance studies covering a diverse range of blues progressions and feels.
”The ukulele is not only one of today’s most popular, versatile instruments in American music. It's also easy to learn and fun to play. While its sonic footprint is similar to other blues instruments, most people don’t yet consider the uke as a blues instrument.
We’ll cover essential techniques and concepts to help you get started on the instrument. We’ll talk about uke history, sizes, tuning, basic chords, strumming vs. fingerpicking, and much more. I’ve organized the course across a series of 11 innovative “blues uke” performance studies so that you can apply all of the concepts and techniques in a musical context.
Each of the performance studies has been designed to help you find your own “blues” voice on the ukulele at every step of the way - learning new chords and keys, finding pentatonic scales, blues ornamentations for uke, fingerpicking patterns, singing blues tunes and more.
You’ll have all of TrueFire’s learning tools at your fingertips so that you can learn and practice everything at your own pace.”
Reverend Jones will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your uke and let’s play some blues with Reverend Robert Jones!
Recommended Ukuleles
1. Cordoba 15CM Concert Ukulele
2. Kala Teak Tri-Top Concert Ukulele
3. Fender Dhani Harrison Ukulele
4. Martin T1K Tenor Ukulele
5. Luna High Tide Koa Concert Ukulele
What you'll learn
- Apply bar chord positions to create I-IV-V changes
- Apply boogie rhythm technique to chord playing
- Create simple blues improvisations using the pentatonic scale
- Execute call and response phrasing in a blues context
- Understand how to structure a traditional blues song
Release date: 03/03/2022 • 2h 30m runtime
Sample lessons
Reverend Davis' Thang
Overview
Reverend Davis' Thang
Performance
Reverend Davis' Thang
Breakdown
House of Johnson
Overview
What's included
40 lessons • 13 charts
Blues Innovations for Ukulele
Hi, I’m Reverend Robert Jones. Welcome to Blues Innovations for Ukulele.
The guitar wasn't considered a blues instrument until Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded "Mail Man Blues" in 1924. Sonny Boy Williamson’s recording of "Dust My Broom” with Elmore James introduced the harmonica into the blues realm.
The ukulele is not only one of today’s most popular, versatile instruments in American music. It's also easy to learn and fun to play. While it’s sonic footprint is similar to other blues instruments, most people don’t yet consider the uke as a blues instrument.
In the first quick section of the course we’ll talk about uke history, sizes, tuning, basic chords, strumming vs. fingerpicking, and other essential uke approaches.
In the second section, we’ll play our way through eleven innovative “blues uke” performance studies. We’ll play early spiritual style etudes, blues shuffles, early urban blues, delta and texas blues and even try a bit of slide on the ukulele. You’ll have all of TrueFire’s learning tools at your fingertips so you can learn and practice everything at your own pace.
Each of the performance studies has been designed to help you find your own “blues” voice on the ukulele at every step of the way - learning new chords and keys, finding pentatonic scales, blues ornamentations for uke, fingerpicking patterns, singing blues tunes and more.
If you’re ready, grab your uke, and let’s dig in!
The guitar wasn't considered a blues instrument until Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded "Mail Man Blues" in 1924. Sonny Boy Williamson’s recording of "Dust My Broom” with Elmore James introduced the harmonica into the blues realm.
The ukulele is not only one of today’s most popular, versatile instruments in American music. It's also easy to learn and fun to play. While it’s sonic footprint is similar to other blues instruments, most people don’t yet consider the uke as a blues instrument.
In the first quick section of the course we’ll talk about uke history, sizes, tuning, basic chords, strumming vs. fingerpicking, and other essential uke approaches.
In the second section, we’ll play our way through eleven innovative “blues uke” performance studies. We’ll play early spiritual style etudes, blues shuffles, early urban blues, delta and texas blues and even try a bit of slide on the ukulele. You’ll have all of TrueFire’s learning tools at your fingertips so you can learn and practice everything at your own pace.
Each of the performance studies has been designed to help you find your own “blues” voice on the ukulele at every step of the way - learning new chords and keys, finding pentatonic scales, blues ornamentations for uke, fingerpicking patterns, singing blues tunes and more.
If you’re ready, grab your uke, and let’s dig in!
Essential Uke Concepts
In this series of lessons I’ll be cover how we can use the Blues Ukulele as an innovative instrument. I'll share my experience on entering the world of Ukulele and what brought me to it, next we'll cover the basics of Ukulele to give you a strong foundation on where to start, and finally we cover the fundamentals of the Blues before moving onto some more intricate lessons. Let's get started!
Discovering Ukulele
Attempting to discover different approaches on an instrument is a musically important idea. Most styles come from musical innovators that weren't afraid to "reinvent" how their instruments were played. Maybelle Carter did it on the guitar. Earl Scruggs did it on the banjo. So, even though most ukulele players strum the instrument, a great many are fingerpickers.
Ukulele Basics
I am, by no means, the first person to play blues on a ukulele! You should especially check out the wonderful Del Rey. She is a monster on Blues Ukulele. My idea is to show how versatile the ukulele is across a wide variety of regional blues styles. The more you listen, the more you learn.
Blues Basics
There are many styles within the envelope of what we would call “The Blues” but the first commercial Blues recording hit the scene in the 1920’s and was a recording by an artist named Mamie Smith who released the tune Crazy Blues. Mamie’s song proved to be so popular that it created a demand for what people considered “authentic blues music”. In this series of lessons we’ll talk a bit more about Mamie and the artists she influenced. Next, I will perform a Classic Blues utilizing the Ukulele, then finally we’ll bring everything together in the breakdown and dive into how you can replicate and capture the heart of this tune on the Ukulele yourself.
Blues Uke Etudes
We’re going to be taking a look at 10 tunes all drawn from traditional African American music. We’ll be covering a bit of Blues, some Spirituals, and even some Jazz oriented tunes. The goal of this next series of lessons is to get you to look at how to use the Ukulele in new and innovative ways.
What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
In this series of lessons we’re going to be taking a look at the tune What Are They Doing In Heaven by a singer of sacred song named Washington Phillips. We’ll start things off by giving you a short history of Washington and the unique instrument he played to over this tune. Next, I will share a performance of his tune utilizing the Ukulele, then finally we’ll bring everything together in the breakdown and dive into how you can replicate and capture the heart of this tune on the Ukulele yourself.
+ 33 more lessons
Reviews
7 results
bxxzxz4pkz
Verified buyer
12/24/23
Enjoyable Presentation
Overall the content is educational and song choices are interesting as Reverend Jones gives background to the arrangements in the overviews. The tutor has a distinct thumb and index finger style and displays getting the most mileage in its use but from a practical perspective for a student it would have been more innovative to have had different styles and strums to consider in addressing the song choices. Otherwise nice showcase from the presenter.
scienceyblues
02/13/23
Excelente
Este es un curso que ofrece a los amantes del blues a introducirse en el mundo del ukulele; yo no he encontrado otros cursos alternativos de este tipo, pero más que ser el único es exepcional por su contenido de calidad. Rcomendado 100%
Francescos
Verified buyer
12/02/22
Un corso diverso dai soliti per Ukulele
Finalmente un corso che si sbilancia verso altri territori, per uno strumento come l'ukulele spesso relegato a canzoni "da spiaggia". Molto interessante e ben fatto.
pmorey
Verified buyer
11/30/22
Clearly explained and musically interesting. Opens up many new possibilities for the ukulele.
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